Stats - How bad is our defensive record & Are we in a relegation battle?

[torres]

4 minutes ago, SallyCinnamon said:

 

No it wasn't, but results wise it was looking quite good. I thought we were riding our luck but I was pleased. We were sitting 6th when I set my expectations to bottom half. 

 

But since then it's just imploded. You can't justify it. Wednesday is one of the hardest jobs in the league, he's had it hard Jos, but you can't excuse the comedy defending, no clean sheets, second half collapses and 10 goals conceded in 3 games.

 

Time is up. 

 

We’ve looked like a car with Stevie Wonder at the wheel for the majority of his time here in my opinion 

 

We’ve got away with it for the most part of his tenure.

 

 Not once have I ever felt comfortable with the way we’ve performed or that we are progressing. 

[torres]

2 minutes ago, Beholder said:

Obviously we will be relegated if we continue like this. 

 

Need swift action from the chairman. 

 

I wouldn’t say swift action is his forte 

[ChinaOwl]

2 minutes ago, Beholder said:

Obviously we will be relegated if we continue like this. 

 

Need swift action from the chairman. 

 

I have my doubts that Chansiri can see this situation for what it is. He probably still sees promotion as a realistic target and will sleepwalk into disaster.

[full fathom five]

I take no joy in this but i called it two games in to the season that we are a bottom 6 side. My mates all said i was being daft, how could a side with FF, Bannan,Reach and Westwood be a bottom 6 side???

[owls maniac]

42 minutes ago, Mr Farrell said:

Scandalous really, and shows no signs of changing.

 

Jos will be made the scapegoat soon as the Chairman realises he's foooked up again, and needs to deflect blame.

 

 

It will be the fans toxicity that will no doubt take the rap. 

[McRightSide]

Big red flag were there last season. I just checked my tweets and I first said he should get the chop in March. I can’t remember the exact trigger, probably the Millwall debacle

 

A lot of people let him get away with it due to the injury situation and the fact he was ‘chucking the kids in’

 

I’m sad to say that this but it’s Unfortuantely been coming for a while. 

[Bouncing Owl]

I put our defensive frailties down to changing the system week in and week out and changing the personnel at the back. 

 

Personally, I’d go to a back 4 with the remit to defend and not play out from the back. Lees and Hector centre halves and that’s it. Give the captaincy to Bannan and let Lees concentrate on defending - what he’s good at.

 

However, I do think we need to change the manager - he’s clearly lost the dressing room.

[full fathom five]

49 minutes ago, HirstWhoScoredIt said:

We are the only team that hasn’t kept a clean sheet (and have been for several weeks).

 

We have conceded 30 goals in 16 matches.  This is the joint worst in the division.  If we do this over the course of the season we will concede 86 goals.

 

I have looked at the league table of the second tier for every season since we got promoted from this level (1990/91).

 

The only teams to concede 86 goals or more in a season are as follows with their final league position:-

 

Rotherham 16/17 - 98 goals- 24th
Blackpool 14/15 - 91 goals - 24th
Scunthorpe 10/11 - 87 goals - 24th
Colchester 07/08 - 86 goals - 24th
Crewe 05/06 - 86 goals - 22nd
Crewe 04/05 - 86 goals - 21st
Wimbledon 03/04 - 91 goals - 24th
Burnley 02/03 - 89 goals - 16th
Barnsley 01/02 - 86 goals - 23rd
Stockport 01/02 -102 goals - 24th
Southend 96/97 - 86 goals - 24th
Bristol Rovers 92/93 - 87 goals - 24th

 

We were relegated in 08/09 and had conceded 26 goals after 16 matches. 3 clean sheets.

 

We were also relegated in 02/03 and had conceded 22 goals after 16 matches. 4 clean sheets.

 

Is our defensive record bad? Yes

 

Are we in a relegation battle? Unquestionably.

 

Can a manager justify this defensive record???

 

 

 

A manager cannot justify this awful defensive record though i think you will find the usual few suspects in here who will stubbornly try their best to, you know who you are.

[full fathom five]

13 minutes ago, Beholder said:

Obviously we will be relegated if we continue like this. 

 

Need swift action from the chairman. 

Agreed

[gurujuan]

It’s not something that can’t be remedied. For a start, we have a young keeper who is a good shot stopper, but doesn’t really command his area This is compounded by us not having a natural leader in the back line. Now I think Dawson has lost a bit of confidence, and probably needs taking out of the firing line. In all honesty, it was fairly obvious we needed to recall Westwood weeks ago, given the above shortcomings. Dawson, or the defence in general, have not been helped by the coaches constant chopping and changing of systems, and personnel 

Also, the way we set up, really gives no protection to the back line. We have Pelupessy and Bannan sat deep, yet neither can be deemed defensive midfielders What’s the point in sacrificing attacking prowess, just to get numbers behind the ball, when most are ineffective in that position? Surely it would be better to let players like Bannan, Reach and Forestieri, take the game to the opposition. Just sitting back and inviting our opponents onto us, just exposes our weak defence to unnecessary pressure. 

Im afraid Jos’s tactics mirror his personality, and it needs someone to come in and set us up, where we can be competitive. 

So, 4 simple steps to sorting out our defence. 

1 Install a more experienced keeper, who can organise his defence

2 Switch to a back four with left and right centre backs, and try and stick with it

3 Play a proper defensive midfielder (Hutch or Hector) to sit in front of the back 4

4 Utilise our creative players, Bannan, Reach and Forestieri further up the field

[TheEnchanter]

47 minutes ago, torres said:

We won’t stop conceding goals until we have a team structure that the players are used to and know their exact roles 

 

The manager not only changes the team constantly he messes with the formation regularly, thus leading to no consistency or responsibility from individuals. 

 

This. Id love to see how many defensive formation and personnel changes we make from game to game in comparison to other teams. 

[myHero]

1 hour ago, HirstWhoScoredIt said:

We are the only team that hasn’t kept a clean sheet (and have been for several weeks).

 

We have conceded 30 goals in 16 matches.  This is the joint worst in the division.  If we do this over the course of the season we will concede 86 goals.

 

I have looked at the league table of the second tier for every season since we got promoted from this level (1990/91).

 

The only teams to concede 86 goals or more in a season are as follows with their final league position:-

 

Rotherham 16/17 - 98 goals- 24th
Blackpool 14/15 - 91 goals - 24th
Scunthorpe 10/11 - 87 goals - 24th
Colchester 07/08 - 86 goals - 24th
Crewe 05/06 - 86 goals - 22nd
Crewe 04/05 - 86 goals - 21st
Wimbledon 03/04 - 91 goals - 24th
Burnley 02/03 - 89 goals - 16th
Barnsley 01/02 - 86 goals - 23rd
Stockport 01/02 -102 goals - 24th
Southend 96/97 - 86 goals - 24th
Bristol Rovers 92/93 - 87 goals - 24th

 

We were relegated in 08/09 and had conceded 26 goals after 16 matches. 3 clean sheets.

 

We were also relegated in 02/03 and had conceded 22 goals after 16 matches. 4 clean sheets.

 

Is our defensive record bad? Yes

 

Are we in a relegation battle? Unquestionably.

 

Can a manager justify this defensive record???

 

 

 

Yes the defence are bad, but central midfield is worse. Until we get players in there who are going to stop the opposition from playing through our midfield like they aren't there the defence are going to look like clowns. I've been saying this for weeks. 

 

The only one who looks capable of this is Hector. It's time to revert back to pragmatic football. The only style I'm interested in is Winning.

[Bing Cosby]

18 minutes ago, Bouncing Owl said:

I put our defensive frailties down to changing the system week in and week out and changing the personnel at the back. 

 

 

I think this is certainly one of the main factors.

 

If you compare how we became much more organised under Jos initially (consistently playing a back 5), and how we've looked this season, it's worlds apart.

 

This idea of changing systems to counteract the opposition is all well and good, but in practice it's a tough ask for experienced pros, when you are asking youngsters to play a different formation from one game to the next, then it's a recipe for disaster.

[torres]

21 minutes ago, McRightSide said:

Big red flag were there last season. I just checked my tweets and I first said he should get the chop in March. I can’t remember the exact trigger, probably the Millwall debacle

 

A lot of people let him get away with it due to the injury situation and the fact he was ‘chucking the kids in’

 

I’m sad to say that this but it’s Unfortuantely been coming for a while. 

 

That Millwall game was where I thought he shouldn’t be here. 

 

The little run we put together near the end of the season papered over huge cracks. We were fortunate in most of our wins in that run. 

This isn’t hindsight - most of us that go regularly have been saying all this for a while 

[myHero]

33 minutes ago, Beholder said:

Obviously we will be relegated if we continue like this. 

 

Need swift action from the chairman. 

Let's see what Jos comes up with on Friday. Now isn't the time for infighting.

 

Jos has shown the ability to stabilise the team defensively last season. I am sure he can see he's got to change what he's doing.

[Walt]

4 minutes ago, full fathom five said:

I take no joy in this but i called it two games in to the season that we are a bottom 6 side. My mates all said i was being daft, how could a side with FF, Bannan,Reach and Westwood be a bottom 6 side???

Aye, and I called us being a bottom third side pre season when we lost three defenders and none were replaced. Pretty obvious wasn't it that the replacements in our second string were not up to the job. 

The tinkering with the defence has got to stop, we have got to stop conceding sloppy goals. We haven't got the players to play a back four as they are not good enough (only way around it would be to play two holding midfielders in front of them but teams that do this usually have fullbacks that play like auxiliary wingers). We have not got the players to go with a back three as we don't have any wingbacks (apart from maybe Penney). So for me it's a dour back 5:

 

Palmer / Baker (nothing between them)

Hutch, Lees, Hector 

Thorniley.

That should be solid enough if they were to play as a back 5, do not expect owt from the wingbacks in an attacking sense as they are not good enough to perform this task. The above back five is purely a defensive one.

 

Maybe 

Palmer / Baker

Hutch, Hector, Thorniley

Penney

Lees has been poor and that back five looks better balanced and potentially gives you something different with Penney as an attacking threat.

 

 

[Holmowl]

34 minutes ago, Bouncing Owl said:

I put our defensive frailties down to changing the system week in and week out and changing the personnel at the back. 

 

Personally, I’d go to a back 4 with the remit to defend and not play out from the back. Lees and Hector centre halves and that’s it. Give the captaincy to Bannan and let Lees concentrate on defending - what he’s good at.

 

However, I do think we need to change the manager - he’s clearly lost the dressing room.

 

I totally understand your point, and to an extent I agree, but how could you NOT make significant changes after say QPR, or Birmingham, or especially Norwich?????

 

I think probably he does need to settle on a system at least. 

[owler66]

8 minutes ago, Ozymandias Owl said:

Let's see what Jos comes up with on Friday. Now isn't the time for infighting.

 

Jos has shown the ability to stabilise the team defensively last season. I am sure he can see he's got to change what he's doing.

Are you sure he can see it doesn't give the impression that he can 

[Bouncing Owl]

2 minutes ago, Holmowl said:

 

I totally understand your point, and to an extent I agree, but how could you NOT make significant changes after say QPR, or Birmingham, or especially Norwich?????

 

I think probably he does need to settle on a system at least. 

 

He was chopping and changing the system and team prior to those games. On another point, why did he drop Hector yesterday on the back of the player of the month award? Was it because he gave the manager some back chat after the Birmingham game? 

[TheEnchanter]

Here's our changes from game to game, I can't remember when we played a back 3 4 or 5 so I've just analysed the defensive players used. 

 

Palmer Lees VanAken Pudil lost 2-3 

Baker Lees Pudil Fox  drew 1-1 (2 changes)

Baker Lees Pudil Thorniley lost 0-2 (1 change)

Palmer Lees Thorniley Penney won 2-1 (2 changes)

Palmer Lees Thorniley Penney won 2-1 (0 changes)

Palmer Lees Thorniley Penney won 2-1 (0 changes)

Palmer Lees Thorniley Penney drew 2-2 (0 changes)

Baker Lees Thorniley Fox lost 1-2 (2 changes)

Baker Lees Hector Pudil Penney won 2-1 (3 changes)

Baker Lees Hector Thorniley Penney drew 1-1 (1 change)

Palmer Lees Hector Pudil Penney drew 2-2 (2 changes)

Palmer Lees Hector Pudil Penney won 2-1 (0 changes)

Palmer Lees Thorniley Hector Penney lost 1-2 (1 change)

Baker Hector Pudil Fox lost 0-3 (3 changes)

Palmer Lees Hector Fox lost 1-3 (2 changes)

Palmer Lees Pudil Penney lost 0-4 (2 changes)

 

 

Conclusions.

• We won most of our games when we hadn't made any changes from the previous game. 
• Players seemingly get dropped for reasons other than form 
• We have suffered our heaviest defeats when we make the most changes
• We have the worst defence in the league and in terms of personnel changes it's one of the highest.